Inquiry into FBI's conduct / Delayed release of UC records probed

Reynolds Holding, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Sunday, February 16, 2003

The weight of a 21-year investigation by a Chronicle reporter and a U.S. senator's demand for answers has prompted the FBI to investigate charges it stonewalled requests for documents about the bureau's Cold War intelligence operations at the University of California.

The inquiry comes in response to Sen. Dianne Feinstein's "deep concern" about allegations raised in a June 9 Chronicle report that revealed wide- ranging abuses at UC by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

One of the stories reported that the bureau delayed release of records detailing the abuses and deleted information to cover up wrongdoing and avoid embarrassment.

"To the extent that the FBI's conduct regarding this case is proven to have been inappropriate or ill-motivated," Mueller wrote Feinstein, D-Calif., on Dec. 23, "I will take steps to make sure such conduct is not repeated."

Chronicle reporter Seth Rosenfeld spent decades battling the FBI for access to the records. He filed three suits under the Freedom of Information Act, leading five federal judges to rule that the documents should be released.

But the FBI appealed the rulings, ultimately spending more than $1 million on the litigation. After settling the case in 1996, the bureau turned over more than 200,000 pages of records on which The Chronicle stories were based.

On June 18, Feinstein demanded that Mueller respond to the stories. She asked whether the FBI had "deliberately" withheld records and edited out "embarrassing information."

Mueller said he did not have complete answers, but had asked the FBI's general counsel to examine the record "to determine whether the FBI pursued litigation as a means to prevent or delay" release of the records.

Mueller also said he had ordered the FBI's Records Management Division "to determine whether the FBI redacted information in order to shield the FBI from embarrassment or to cover up unlawful activities."